Boston Bombing: The Meaning of Dunkin' Donuts

Boston, Mass.-- The fact that many Bostonians responded to the bombing of their marathon by defiantly name-checking Dunkin' Donuts has caused some confusion among non-Bostonians. This is mostly because, as we'll be the first to admit, Dunkin' Donuts coffee is not very good. In other cities, Dunkin' is that chain that sells weak coffee and, inexplicably, watery tuna salad bagel sandwiches. But in Boston, Dunkin' isn't just coffee. Dunkin' has meaning. Dunkin' is us.

"America runs on Dunkin." Couldn't be in Boston today so I went the next best place - DD http://t.co/u7qXI1TrCo

A whole generation of Bostonians grew up with Dunkin's as a pop culture touchstone. We grew up watching Fred the Baker, a mustachioed, bleary-eyed pitchman who got up wicked early every morning to bake fresh donuts (five kinds of jelly!). Fred the Baker shuffled across Boston television sets for the better part of two decades, mumbling that it was time to make the donuts, time to make the donuts, at Dunkin's it's always time to make the donuts. These cultural ties endure, even as the chain has corporatized, gone global, and moved its donut-baking operations to central factories churning out confections that taste like shortening-coated cardboard.

To be sure, there are other caffeine merchants in town. Starbucks caters to blow-ins and the forces of upward economic mobility; the chain's arrival in South Boston signaled the end of the long, painful gentrification of that formerly clannish Irish enclave. MacBook-wielding creative types and bike messengers frequent the handful of scruffy independent coffee shops around town. High school girls tend to gravitate toward Mary Lou's, a shop where bubbly young females in short shorts dispense syrupy, sugary calorie bombs.

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But for the rest of us, there's Dunkin's. It's less a coffee shop than a marker of local solidarity. It's an expression of shared heritage that bridges the petty ethnic, regional and class tribalism that normally dominates Boston. A large regular is a large regular, whether you're in Dorchester or Chelsea or Wellesley. The thing that unites us is mediocre coffee.

For some reason, I believe eating breakfast from Dunkin Donuts will somehow restore the energies of my city. #Boston

Dunkin' is ubiquitous. Bostonians grow up surrounded by the stuff. One cannot overstate the sheer number of storefronts the chain has claimed. My office is two blocks from the subway, and this route offers four different Dunkin' outlets. Many Bostonians were literally born into Dunkin's, evidenced by the multitude of pregnant Boston girls incapable, or unwilling, to kick their Dunkin' habits.

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Most of all, Dunkin' is a metaphor for Boston itself. It inspires fierce devotion from locals, despite all obvious measures of its inadequacy. We love it and defend it, because it's ours.

Paul McMorrow is a staff writer for Commonwealth magazine, and a columnist at the Boston Globe. Follow him on Twitter @paul_mcmorrow.

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